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Tractor Used in Terrorist Attack in Jerusalem, Killing One

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A tractor driver from the Arab neighborhood of Jabel Mukaber flipped over a bus on Shmuel HaNavi street in Jerusalem on Aug. 4, 2014. Photo by Yonatan Sindel/Flash90.

JERUSALEM — A tractor rammed a bus and a car in Jerusalem, killing one, in what police are calling a terrorist attack.

Police shot and killed the driver of the industrial digger, reportedly a Palestinian man.

The incident occurred on Shmuel HaNavi Street in north-center Jerusalem.

The tractor hit and crushed a pedestrian, who later died, before hitting a car and overturning a bus. The bus was empty, except for the driver, at the time. The driver of the bus and of the car were lightly injured.

Video taken of the incident by a bystander and broadcast on Israel’s Channel 2 show the industrial vehicle ramming the bus repeatedly until it topples.

The driver is being identified on Twitter as Mohamad Jabis, in his 20s, of the eastern Jerusalem neighborhood of Jabel Mukaber. He reportedly worked on the construction site from where the digger was taken. Pro-Palestinian tweets accuse Israel Police of shooting and killing Jabis for being involved in simple traffic accident.

Public Security Minister Yitzhak Aharonovitch, in an interview on Channel 2, did not name the accused terrorist but indicated that he may have been involved in a terror incident in the past. Aharonovitch also said that the man’s “entire family is under investigation.”

Tractors have been used in the past in Jerusalem to carry out terror attacks.